How to shed your saccharin popstar image

Yesterday my dear brother posted a link on Facebook of the new Justin Bieber song Right Here feat Drake. In the interest of full disclosure, my baby brother was seriously concerned about Drake and his street cred. How could someone that is from the bad streets of Toronto and starred on Degrassi: The Next Generation ever collaborate with The Biebs? Now I'm not even going to pretend Drake is super tough, y'all. He'll always be Wheelchair Jimmy to me. But he seems to have shed his goody two shoes image and established himself as a sorta bad-ass with Young Money. So it makes total sense to me that The Biebs would turn to Drake for help perfecting his own bad-ass image. The Bieber-Drake collabo is all just a cog in the big machine as we see Bieber changing his image and maturing as an artist, y'all.

 
I'm sure you're sitting there thinking this is all well and good, LyssieBee, but how the heck this even relate to calf tattoos? Well, as I was listening to 'Right Here' and hating myself for not totally hating the song, I remembered that Justin Bieber had an amazing calf tattoo!  Of course he does. He's trying to be a serious artist and a badass now. You can't collaborate with Drake if you are all bubblegum pop. No-sirree,Wheelchair Jimmy only lends his vocal stylings to a fellow bad ass. And nothing says 'suck it, teeny bopper image' quite like a calf tattoo. Of Jesus.

Proof it's actually him!

Better view of the calf tat

Lest you think I am super shallow and only obsessed with pop culture, I'm also into art! Not just the kind that appears on coasters, place mats and the occasional umbrella, but stuff you see in a museum. So when those pictures surfaced of Bieber frolicking on the beach and just casually revealing his new ink, I knew I had seen the image before. It's an adaptation of Ruben's The Crown of Thorns (Ecce Homo). For those of you too lazy to use the Google or the Wiki, Ecce homo is what Pontius Pilate declared when he presented Jesus to the crowd before his crucifixion. It means Behold the man (in Latin).

Did it just get real in here? I mean, this is a serious decree of badassness by the Biebs. He decided to permanently tattoo an image that is symbolic of words that were used to refer to JESUS! And he was bold enough to ink his skinny little calves. I like that Bieber took the go big or go home approach on this tattoo. I think he's certainly worthy of collaborating with an established kinda badass like Drake (who doesn't even have a calf tattoo of his own). I'm pretty sure this also means that my brother can stop worrying about any effect this collabo may have on Drake's street cred. Justin Bieber is certified bad ass. Calf tattoo and all.